Biden 'comfortable' with gay marriage

Joe Biden, the US Vice-President, has reignited the controversy over gay marriage, accusing Republicans of being ''stuck in the 1950s'' on moral and social issues and proclaiming himself ''absolutely comfortable'' with same-sex marriages.

As he waded into one of the most divisive topics of the forthcoming US election, he stopped short of giving full backing to gay marriage, revealing his own party's uncertainty on the issue.

''I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying one another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties,'' he said. President Barack Obama's position is said by aides to be ''evolving''.